Why I like Princeton.

I wasn't expecting to.

I came here two years ago, only I showed up to the Institute for Advanced Study. To be honest, I wasn't impressed. Don't get me wrong, the academic records of the people there are staggering, but the place itself was kind of underwhelming. There was usually nobody in the common room, and when there was, they were usually reading quietly. And there were no blackboards! Most of all, the place cleared out by 5:00. Where did everyone go? Surely not to explore Princeton's nightlife.

This time, I showed up to Princeton itself (both the university and IAS are in the town of Princeton; within walking distance of each other on a day with pleasant weather). What a great place! I walked into Fine Hall, was welcomed by my collaborator Takashi Taniguchi, and soon ran into lots of other people I knew. The atmosphere was buzzing, with people talking excitedly about math problems and also about much else. I got to play Arul Shankar at chess (and I lost badly), and I was assured the common room is buzzing at midnight. After being there for a few days, I fully believe it.

I had some specific work in mind, and I've worked on that, but that hasn't been the interesting part. I've taken part in a normal of informal and semi-formal math discussions, and also attended a lecture by Peter Sarnak, which turned out to be two and a half hours long (no break) and staggeringly good. And I haven't even met with Manjul yet.

Beyond that, I even got invited to a graduate student party (I have an old friend from San Francisco here), and the grad students have quite a lively life here. The people were pretty awesome -- clever, energetic, and just downright fun. (And, needless to say, seriously smart.)

This place is awesome.

First semester in Columbia.

So I'm basically done for the semester, the calculus exams are graded. Tomorrow evening, like the undergrads, I'll leave Columbia for the entire break. To Princeton for a week to meet some collaborators, home for the holidays, then the AMS Joint Meeting, back in time for my first class.

I've meant to blog more. One day I took my camera around, and took a bunch of photos, and was going to write a blog post about "Things I like about Columbia". The obvious -- beautiful residential neighborhoods -- as well as the nonobvious -- a very useful bike/pedestrian shortcut in a town where few walk or bike. But, there is a special gizmo I need to connect my computer to my camera, and I have no idea where it is. It's in some box I haven't unpacked yet.

I've been variously asked if I've gotten "settled", "adjusted", "used to" Columbia. My dean was told, "Yes, thank you," but the truth is no. I haven't unpacked most of my boxes and South Carolina doesn't feel like home. But then again, I don't -- yet! -- want to be settled. For now, after living a few years each in a couple of amazing places, and knowing all sorts of interesting people who came and went, and getting used to constant change, "settled" doesn't seem to describe anything that appeals to me.

So far anyway, I've kept extremely busy. I have a 2-1 teaching load this year, and I requested the 2 up front. So I taught calculus and analytic number theory, both of which kept me busy. There are some things in my department I don't really like -- a lot of students who come in with very weak backgrounds, and a fatalism on the part of the faculty that much can or should be done about it. However, I have much more good than bad to say about USC math. My fellow professors have been unusually kind, consistently offering me suggestions and helpful advice, telling me what they would do but also letting me know when I don't have to follow their advice. Committee work has been kind of a drag, but it's also illuminating, I've gotten to learn a little bit about how universities run.

I've been on the road a lot. Indeed, I think I've spent less than half of the last four months of weekends in town. I've been to four (four!) conferences over weekends and have travelled elsewhere to give talks as well. Montreal especially was tremendous. I also hosted some visitors, which is a blast.

And on top of that, I wrote an NSF grant proposal, finished two papers, etc. The list goes on. Work is very, very good.

Outside work? I've tried and seen a lot. I went to the State Fair (fried Kool-Aid, anybody?), I saw Gamecocks football (I started feeling pity for our opponents), I played in a (weekly!) duplicate bridge tournament (1.9 MP's!), I went ballroom dancing (mostly older people, but they're very nice). All pleasant and enjoyable -- but, unfortunately, all kind of forgettable. Everything I've done so far compares to something else I've done on a bigger scale. The one thing that has been genuinely unique is my yoga studio -- I've been to excellent yoga classes before, but this place has a unique Southern twist to it. It annoyed me at first (c'mon people, bound side angle is not that hard), but it's grown on me, and one day they coaxed a full side crow out of me (which Yoga Tree in SF never did).

Now there is a lot that I know about that I haven't yet explored. I haven't yet been to the UU congregation in my neighborhood, nor the Buddhist meditation circle which meets on Wednesdays. I've been to Art Bar a couple times, but it seems to be home to the local counterculture and I haven't fully explored it yet. There is also apparently an excellent karate teacher in town, and I have badly missed the martial arts.

So in the new year I hope to have it both ways. I hope to keep up the serious math -- which has been a huge solace this fall, as I have left behind so much that I love. But I'll be looking for some serious distractions, in whatever form (people, activities, organizations, ...) -- the kind that grab on your heart and wrench, hard. ;)

The adventures of a Columbia pedestrian.

Columbia is a beautiful town to walk in. It is full of old Southern houses, friendly pedestrian districts, trees all over the place... and of course there is the beautiful State House in the center of town with all of the interesting monuments around. It looks a bit sad and forlorn, like a relic from a defeated and subjugated culture. And then the Confederate flag, still flying high, reminds you that it is.

I ended up living in Shandon, the residental neighborhood just east of campus, and so about a mile and a half from the statue of Senator Strom. I walk to work each day, covering a mile in about twenty minutes. Sometimes I'll go to Cool Beans (a coffee shop) or the Nickelodeon (an indie theater) afterwards, or stop by restaurants or a yoga studio which are directly on my way home. All on foot.

Now there's an amusing twist to this story. I thought I would save money by not renewing my California car registration (expired a week after I got here), but when I got here and went to the local DMV, my paperwork was not in order and so I have to wait a month while paperwork makes it through the mail. Until then, my car is parked outside and I can't legally drive it.

Some people would be really annoyed, and I seem to be surprising people with my Zen-like attitude to it all. Groceries two thirds of a mile away? Show up with a large backpack. (This earned me a visit from the security guard at Food Lion, and admiration from the cashier at Earth Fare.)

The drivers seem oblivious, and I have had a couple moderately close calls with careless drivers. I'm also a little bit annoyed with pedestrians who always wait for cars (no, you get to go first) and with businesses who put sprinklers out and drench the sidewalks. But nothing serious.

It's created some interesting etiquette situations too. I showed up to my yoga studio, which is in the middle of a busy neighborhood, is exactly between work and home, and where there is even a pedestrian shortcut across a rail line. I'll keep walking there even once I have my car. To my very pleasant surprise, I got invited out to dinner a mile away, and I so I happily showed up 20 minutes later, carrying my gym bag as well as my briefcase from work. I didn't see the issue, but when I mentioned I'd walked, my companions fell over themselves to apologize to me, and told me they'd worried.

I hate to cause concern, but really, I'm fine. This is a beautiful city, and walking around here is quite lovely. You might try it sometime.

Postcard from Columbia!

Wednesday, August 10, 8:45 a.m. I had slept poorly the previous morning, in a cheap motel two miles outside of downtown. Today was the first day of faculty orientation, and the first day I'd had to set my alarm for quite some time. That said, it was showtime, and I had shown up to the top floor of the business school.

"Hello, welcome! Can I have your last name please?" A perky, cheerful woman greeted me as I walked in. Simultaneously, I noticed an array of name tags in alphabetical order that had been laid out on the table, and picked mine out. "Thorne," I told her, pointing to my name tag.

She smiled, but a bit awkwardly. It seemed she was there that morning was to help people find their name tags.

I then turned my attention to the room. I had arrived fifteen minutes early, not counting "Coffee: 8:30-9:00", and yet I seemed to be nearly the last one there. Everyone was quite chipper, and in a dress shirt and slacks I felt distinctly underdressed: at least half of the men were wearing suits.

Welcome to Columbia! I have just arrived from San Francisco, where nobody gets up before 9:00 if they can help it, where the same shirts made me overdressed, and where if your friend is flying into town, you give them your address so they can find the place on their own. This place is really different.

Columbia is beautiful. It has a distinct, understated Southern charm, especially on the USC campus and in the residential neighborhoods around. The state house is a half mile to the northwest, and beyond that the historic Main Street. Main Street is beautiful, and is emerging as the hip new place to live, but I learned that "up-and-coming" means "not there yet" when I walked the entire length of it on a hot Sunday afternoon, attempting in vain to buy something cold to drink.

The people are really quite friendly. As I mentioned before, people are often eager to help me do things that I am used to doing without any help. Some of them don't really seem to be very expert. (The librarian in the math library, for example, was very obviously fresh blood.) But the kindness is genuine.

I have been advised to lower my standards, and this has been discouraging. For example, I checked out a yoga studio, and told the instructor I'd been taking classes in San Francisco, and she cautioned me not to expect too much. Actually, she was quite knowledgeable, and the class was technically excellent, but she didn't push us hard. I barely broke a sweat. Similarly, I have been warned that the undergraduate students are poor, compared to Wisconsin (let alone Stanford).

That said, one happy exception is my department chair. USC is looking to hire this year, and I mentioned that "The market is really bad this year, you'll be able to hire someone really great." He replied, "We'd be able to hire someone really great anyway." I like this guy.

I've found a lovely apartment, with a cool seventies vibe to it. Currently I have no furniture whatsoever, but my furniture from SF arrives this week, and I've also got some stuff I ordered arriving. I'll be getting my bicycle, which will prove useful thanks to a misadventure (ahem!) I had at the DMV. I've made friends (and already been invited out), and classes start this Friday.

I won't lie, it's a bit difficult, because I never wanted to leave the fast pace of San Francisco. But I have little idea of what my life might look like in a couple of years, which automatically makes the present the biggest adventure of my life.

Packing boxes. Humility and mortality.

In a little under three weeks I'm moving to Columbia, South Carolina.

I'm not being too organized about my move. Many people have advised me to take an apartment-hunting trip out there and look at places beforehand. I ignored their advice. Some people in similar situations have moved to their new job already. I'll be showing up around two weeks before the start of classes, which is cutting it a little tight.

But not absurdly so. Especially since I'm starting to prepare for my teaching now, I've been researching apartments on the internet, and I have an appointment with a moving service on Thursday. I'm thinking about road-tripping it, and I got the Lonely Planet USA and am working out which national parks I want to visit along the way.

In some ways I've been thinking about my move for a very long time. I fell in love with San Francisco straightaway, and it's always been on my mind that I would only have a couple of short years before I said farewell to the people and places I care about.

But, for the first time, I am thinking about my move in practical terms. Looking for apartments, for example, was a bit odd. Rents are cheap, and the most attractive neighborhoods in Columbia are all close to the campus, so I can get whatever I want. But as I browsed Craigslist I realized that I have multiple, incompatible notions of what I want. Still, it is my privilege to decide.

I also dug out some of my boxes, and began to triage what I want to keep and what I'm happy to throw away. There's always something sad about this. A couple of my boxes haven't been opened since I packed them in Madison. I looked inside, figuring that surely I'd throw them away, and I threw away some of the contents, but not all. There were notes I took in graduate classes, printouts of draft books not available elsewhere, and so on. They seemed worth saving. For when, I don't know, but I saved them.

There was more. Under my bed was my electronic keyboard, gathering dust. I dug it out and found the power cord (a decidedly nontrivial task). It turns out that I more or less remember Bach's Invention #4.

I also found some karate uniforms, belts, books, and weapons. I haven't practiced karate in the last three years, a fact which brings me at least a little shame. Karate was so important to me for so long, and out here I just stopped doing it. For good reason -- it is very difficult to change dojos, and so I decided to wait until I settled somewhere more permanently to pick it up again, and I may indeed practice again in Columbia. But for now my gi was gathering dust.

And so on. Perhaps after I move, I will take piano lessons (which I have never actually done!) and join a dojo. But then my guitar and yoga mat will gather dust instead. There is no avoiding the dust.

And indeed, to dust I will return too. Packing has reminded me that I am growing older, and that while I can do anything, I can't do everything. I sort of always felt in the back of my mind that in the long run I could do everything.

I am going to die. A sad fact, but the Buddhists teach that it's joyous as well. I can't do a damn thing about it (other than, perhaps, lay off the Diet Coke), and it will not be any less true if I ignore it. It frees me to be bold, to take risks, and to accept each moment as it is.

The stress of moving.

Beautiful weather today. Working from home. Decided to go for a midafternoon run, which I haven't done in awhile. The run was nice, and then when I went to the subway stop to go home, I saw a couple things I hadn't seen in awhile. In the first place, the subway stop itself -- it has been a month or two since I've ridden. But also, a colorful schedule for the Castro Theatre, as well as an ad for a local dance company. A happy reminder that San Francisco is still new, that I haven't done everything and can't do everything.

This summer I'm moving to Columbia, South Carolina. I'm really excited about my job, but confess that I will find it difficult to leave San Francisco. After my run, I recalled a conversation with my sister and her fiance about the stress of moving.

"Yeah, it is really difficult," they told me. (They had moved from Chicago to Boston a couple of years back.) "You don't even know where to buy groceries!" But somehow the conversation failed to comfort me.

I thought more about why moving is stressful, and the interesting thing is that for me, not knowing where to buy groceries actually mitigates the stress. The first time in any grocery store is an adventure. You don't know what's there, and you don't know what to buy. You are forced to engage your senses. But now that I've been to my local Trader Joe's forty times, I typically tune out mentally and just buy all the same stuff I bought last time.

The stress for me is having few friends, few connections to the community, and few things to do on a Friday night. (This has happened every time I've moved.) It's interesting comparing my experience to my sister's. I feel there's something I can learn from it.

A memory from Japan. Not knowing is most intimate.

Today, while visiting a Japanese-style hot spring bath, I recalled a story from Japan. A little bit of regret, but still a good memory.

I used to live in Fukuchiyama, Kyoto Prefecture, and I made a habit of visiting as many onsens (hot springs), Shinto shrines, and Buddhist temples. I loved the Buddhist temples in particular -- the experience of visiting felt profound to me -- a meeting of spirituality, history, mystery, and adventure. These spots had been on the map, and attracted pilgrims, for hundreds of years, and I was adding my name to the long list of people who had gone before me.

Arguably the most famous sacred spot is Mount Koya. It's the home of Shingon Buddhism, of which I could say much more, but for now let me just say that it was a breathtaking place. Around May of 2000 I made arrangements to visit. I invited my friend Dave Walter, who was less into temples than I was, but was often good for a weekend's excursion. I invited him on trips to temples, and he invited me to parties, and between this we managed to stave off boredom.

Anyway, we got to the monasteries, and I was looking forward to a quiet, contemplative experience -- and Dave annoyed me by chatting up all the foreigners he saw -- and especially all the attractive women -- thereby disturbing my silence and contemplation. But, in true Buddhist fashion, I went with the flow, and it indeed turned out that this experience was much greater than the one I had planned. Several of the foreigners were cracking sarcastic jokes the whole time, but several of them were as moved and as serious as I was. And it was with them that I visited the oku-no-in, the inner sanctuary.

I could not possibly do justice to this place in this blog post, so let me say that it was the most breathtaking place I have ever visited, and move on with the story. The rest of the story is simple, and familiar. The group split up, we went back to the temple where we were staying, and Dave went back to his room to do whatever. But I stayed talking with one of the women; she told me about all of the sacred spots she had been to, and those she intended to visit. She was deep, adventurous, and unafraid. And she was equally interested in what I had to say.

Eventually curfew came (we were staying in Buddhist temples, and were to be woken early in the morning), and we traded contact information and promised to keep in touch. She worked as an English teacher somewhere in eastern Japan, far away. I took the paper with her e-mail address and saved it.

And didn't do anything. Neither of us contacted the other again.

The regret is obvious. I wish I'd called her up and asked if I could visit. What would have happened? I have no idea -- which is precisely why I should have gone.

It's a very forgivable mistake. She lived damn far away. (Tochigi, I want to say, but I could be wrong.) I've forgotten her name. Maybe that piece of paper is still with the stuff I saved from Japan, in my parents' attic. Probably not, but it could be.

Today, for better or worse, this wouldn't have happened. We have Facebook, and I friend more people than I actually keep in touch with. It is kind of funny how this drains some of the mystery out of life. I wonder what that girl I had a huge crush on in in high school is up to nowadays -- ? Well, I just checked Facebook, and she was exasperated because her daughter refused to participate in her YMCA soccer practice. (That said, she is also an oncologist.)

But, this one woman -- since I don't remember her name, I can't look her up. Perhaps she is volunteering in Africa; perhaps she is an entrepreneur; perhaps she lives some humdrum life in some suburb somewhere. I don't know.

Not knowing is most intimate. Such was the subject of a Zen koan workshop I went to, and it is true. I could have been brave and hopped on the train to visit this mystery woman eleven years ago. But I at least had the nerve to hold my chin up high and talk to her for an evening way back then. And the more I think back to the past, the more I recall oddball moments like these, that I didn't seek out or expect -- the more I have hope for the future and appreciation for now.

Lindy in the park, and what I couldn't take home.

I love, love, absolutely love Lindy in the Park. Outdoor swing dancing in Golden Gate Park. The music, the dancing, the excitement, people, the positive vibe. It easily ranks among the best experiences of my entire life. And it is every Sunday at noon.

Why do I like it so much? A hard question to answer, but perhaps it connects me to people in a way I find more accessible, more exciting, and more intimate than conversation. I don't really want to know how your day was. I'll ask you, to try and make conversation, but at heart I'm not a talker. Instead, I'm a do-er, and indeed a dancer. In swing dancing you are improvising, responding to the music and your feelings, and you are not doing it by yourself! There is someone there with you, responding to you and inviting you to respond to them, and every partner is different.

That brings me to one experience I had yesterday at LITP. I've had many more that were similar in recent memory, with different people, but I'll recall the one I remember from yesterday.

It's simple really. I met one woman, M., felt a really good connection with her, had an unusually fabulous time dancing, even chatted a bit during the dance, and four minutes later, the song was over.

What did I do? Well, nothing really. I had a chance to talk with her later, but I didn't terribly have anything to say, and somehow the prospect of chatting her up seemed artificial and contrived. So, I didn't. We smiled and parted our separate ways. I danced with a whole bunch of other people and eventually the dance was over and I left in a really, really, really good mood.

My question doesn't undo my good mood, now or then. But still, I have to wonder if I missed an opportunity. I was definitely attracted to her, and she was at least maybe attracted to me. We had a good vibe anyway. I wanted to explore the connection further, but there seemed nothing to do. We'd danced, and already hit the high point, and by the time we ran into each other again the music was over. I could have said something, made some small talk. But it felt at the time that it would have been a little bit contrived. I wanted to connect, but there was not anything particular I wanted to say or do.

Two years ago I was determined to not let any chances slip away, and I made awkward small talk and strained to get dates in situations like this. Since then I've gotten a little bit burned, and have decided to "be myself" more in situations like this. Which typically means waiting, observing, and often doing nothing.

Is it the right decision? I'm unsure, because I didn't leave with her phone number. I don't have her name, so I can't look her up on Facebook. Probably I won't see her again.

But I had a fabulous time, and I left in a really, really, really good mood.

On Wisconsin labor: a compromise proposal.

So I've been reading the news from Wisconsin, as well as editorials on the Wisconsin labor situation from the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Economist. I think both sides have a point.

On the one hand, I think it's ridiculous to try to take away collective bargaining rights from the unions. Why should unions, or any bargaining agent, not be able to bargain for whatever they want? In no way is the legislature forced to agree.

However, I think the opposition has a point too. The WSJ (and others) claim that the unions are "on both sides of the bargaining table", because they raise a lot of union dues, which are automatically collected by the state and given to the unions, who then funnel them to Democratic politicians. I support the Democratic party, but that's my choice. I don't accept that any organization should make it for me.

As a theoretical exercise, I propose the following compromise:

(1) Split union dues into two parts, and make half of them opt-in rather than opt-out. You can quit the union, but you can't get out of paying union dues. Apparently, if you make a big fuss, you can get some of your dues back -- those that go to Democratic politicians, or perhaps those that go to beer.

It seems the fair thing to do is to require employees represented by unions (I'm thinking of the TAA specifically, but I imagine other unions are similar) to pay only the bare minimum which actually pays for the TAA's specific expenses in negotiating and dealing with the legislature. Any money that goes to politicians, to social events, or to national labor organizations should not be automatically deducted from paychecks, except from those TAs and employees that specifically decide to join the union. This would come with the understanding that it's purely optional, and comes with higher paycheck deductions.

(2) Require unions to be recertified periodically by secret ballot. Walker wants this, and I think this part is fair. Maybe not annually, but at least every two or four years. Require, say, a quorum of at least a third of those represented by the union, and a majority vote to retain the union.

As it is now, there is no way the unions are going anywhere. There's no real mechanism for them to be disbanded (except by the legislature), and there is enormous social pressure against speaking out against the unions. I get the impression that the unions enjoy overwhelming support. I think it is reasonable that Republicans ask that the unions prove it.

On the storm in Wisconsin.

And not a blizzard! The news from Wisconsin has been incredible. In brief -- control of both houses of the state legislature has passed to Republicans, along with the new Republican governor Scott Walker. He is determined to crush the public-sector unions, and he has proposed a budget that will not only require public sector workers to pay substantially more in contributions to pensions and health insurance, but will also eliminate most of the unions' collective bargaining rights, and make Wisconsin a "right-to-work" state -- i.e., public sector workers will be able to choose whether or not to join the union, and nonmembers won't be obliged to pay union dues.

And here is what has happened so far: Thousands of people, including several of my friends, have marched on the Capitol, in the bitter Wisconsin winter, to protest. They filled the capitol building to the gills, and have brought sleeping bags and stayed overnight to speak for two minutes each. The governor intends to announce his budget at some agricultural feed warehouse in Fitchburg, rather than in the Capitol as is traditional. (Seriously?!) He pushed through his budget in an astonishing hurry, and scheduled a vote today. However, all of the Democratic state senators have left the state (!!), leaving the senate without a three-fifths quorum. Walker ordered state agencies to track them down and bring them in, but they refused, and now that the senators are out of state, these agencies lack jurisdiction anyway.

Incredible! Some of the most vigorous protesting that has been seen in a long time, this side of the Middle East.

Something interesting I've learned, mostly from watching my friends' Facebook pages, is how ideologically important these issues are to many of my friends. I tend to be a little bit queasy about public-sector unions for various reasons. I have seen them overreach, and the people who would like to make Wisconsin "right-to-work" have some good arguments on their side. But overall I support the TAA's efforts, and I would support them even if their opponents were being reasonable. (Which now, they certainly are not.)

If I were in Madison now, I would have probably marched on the Capitol to make sure that UW remained a good university, capable of attracting excellent professors and grad students as it has in the past. But I see that many of my friends care passionately about the union, and the collective bargaining process, itself. As one of my friends said:

Okay, I'm sorry, but I'm tired of people claiming that Gov. Walker's bill is a good proposal is clearly missing out on why the protests are happening. TRY and understand that we are not here protesting because we're unwilling to pay into our pensions and pay more for our health insurance. We are protesting because his bill strips us of our collective bargaining rights. Should this bill passes, we would not be able to bargain for anything BUT wages, and even then it would be capped to the rate of inflation. Anything above that has to be put to a voter referendum. It's incredibly frustrating that people can't seem to understand that it's not that we are unwilling to "cinch our belts" in this economy. Should this bill passes, not only will we be paying more but we will be unable to bargain back anything that we've lost. EVEN when the economy gets better.

Rather astonishing, and anyone who is paying any kind of attention ought to be moved. My friends have little stake in this, from a purely selfish point of view. After all, they're going to graduate soon. They are fighting for collective bargaining because they believe in it.

When I was a grad student at Wisconsin, I didn't understand why people felt so passionately about the TAA. Honestly, I still don't. But my friends have made it clear that they do care passionately, and that they will not be ignored. That alone ought to make Scott Walker and everyone else stop for at least a moment, and respect what my friends and so many others are doing.

I'm white. What does that mean?

Post #2 on racism. (#3 to come. I am pulling together a discussion.)

One of the charges in Tatum's book is that I should actively think of myself as White. I'm not just ``normal'', I have a race. I should embrace my heritage and consider it part of who I am.

It seems that she's a little bit vague on how to do that, though. She recommends reading about white people who were involved with antiracist movements, and identifying with them. Well, okay. But do Black, Asian, Native American, and other peoples only identify with their racial heritage to the extent that people of their races fought racism? Of course not.

The White cultural heritage is quite rich. Bach and Mozart, Leonardo and Picasso, Hume and Kant, Gauss and Newton, Smith, Locke, and Marx, Shakespeare and Twain, Jefferson and Franklin. All of these people are White. And I do consider myself an heir to this heritage.

But would I any less if I weren't white? Maybe so. But I consider these men (yes, they're all white men) to be part of my heritage because they're familiar to Americans of all races; because I have read them, listened to their music, seen their artwork, and been influenced by their ideas. Perhaps it is easier to identify with these men because I am White. Perhaps it is not. But in any case, my feeling is that I share this heritage with people of all races. I don't wish to keep it for myself.

Let me now try to address a different aspect of the question. What does it mean to be White today? Is there a White culture, and am I part of it?

Christian Lander nailed this one. Let's see... I enjoy coffee, yoga, martial arts, improv comedy, and meditation. I have at least some interest in Buddhism. I love travel. I am an academic, and I live in San Francisco. And I'm constantly eschewing luxury and looking for deeper meaning in life. That makes me really, really white.

Lander's blog is funny as hell. But if you look at the list, it's clear where my culture comes from.

Privilege. And lots of it. I'll probably never struggle to pay my bills; the idea feels a bit absurd. I am working my dream job, and I'm a bit disappointed that I won't also be able to stay in my dream city forever. (And if that's not coming from a privileged voice, what is?)

The trend in the list, and in my life, and in those of people I know, is that material survival and even comfort have become easy, and that I don't have a lot of responsibilities. I have an excess of money, and in some ways time, and I am constantly looking for meaningful, "important" things to do.

No apologies for this. There's not much reason for me to worry about comfort, and I am very serious about the responsibilities I do take on. But I'm not so eager to buy a house with a lawn to mow. I've sought out diverse, interesting, entertaining, and (I think) meaningful things to do, and I've been doing my best to live a good life.

Does that mark me as White? Well, certainly there is a correlation in this country between Whiteness and privilege, but I share all of the above traits in common with people who aren't White. People who come from different ethnic backgrounds, but who (like me) had good educational opportunities, and who share many of my values and interests. This is the American subculture I identify with. This is what is part of my identity.

Now my racial heritage, my Whiteness, by itself? I'm sorry, Dr. Tatum, but after mulling the matter over I decided that I really just don't give a shit. But my race correlates with, even if it doesn't dictate, the opportunities I enjoy, and to a large extent my values.

Why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria?

Such is the title of a book by Beverly Daniel Tatum. I've been long meaning to read a book on race (I've read the Autobiography of Malcolm X, but nothing else comes to mind), and this is a good one.

I'm not going to summarize the book -- instead, I want to talk about what I found powerful, compelling, and surprising, what I found frustrating, and what I disagreed with.

I don't feel white. I'm just normal. Such is my attitude, or my untrained attitude anyway. Why is it so important to Black people that they are Black? Her explanation was brilliant, and I found it completely compelling.

I can illustrate with a trivial example from my own life. Being an academic, I have to move a lot, and people often try to emphasize with what I must be feeling. For example, people assume I care a lot about the weather, but in fact other things are much more important to me. And when people assume that weather is high on my list of priorities, this annoys me. I want to talk to someone who understands my perspective, and who feels the same way.

Now if I can be annoyed by something so inconsequential, to the extent that it feels like a small part of my identity, the book compelled me to imagine that I was treated with more suspicion everywhere I went. Not a lot more, perhaps, or always, but noticeably more, and often. Imagine that I was asked to show my ID when white people were not. That security guards followed me, that people presumed I was going to steal from them, cheat them, rob them. This wouldn't have to happen every time. Even once a week would really grate on me, to the extent that it became part of who I am.

That said, I'm not sure I fit the standard white model. In some respects my privilege has been kind of low: I was a socially awkward kid, and often made people uncomfortable just by my presence. In some respects my privilege has been stratospherically high. For example, my parents pulled all sorts of strings to get me into advanced math classes as a kid. Even more recently, during my time in the Wisconsin math department, I noticed I quickly rose to a spot of privilege. I wasn't totally sure why, but people seemed always willing to give me the benefit of the doubt.

But then again, I read "Stuff White People Like"... and... yup. That's me.

Affirmative action. Tatum cited all sorts of studies which prove - prove (rigorous methodology was used) that people judge white and black job candidates with implicit bias. Black people are judged less qualified, especially on the high end.

I think that most affirmative action just consists of looking extra hard for minorities and trying to encourage them to apply. But even if we explicitly "bumped up" Black candidates, so to speak, perhaps we are doing nothing more than counteracting our implicit biases. Certainly these stories single-handedly debunk all of the facile arguments against affirmative action. (I don't think that they imply AA is always a good thing though, and the author agrees.)

Racism = prejudice + institutional power. Tatum defines (I've seen this elsewhere) that racism is not just race-based prejudice. It must be backed up by institutional power. Ergo, she claims without an argument, blacks can't be racist towards whites, and women can't be sexist towards men.

Wait. The racism claim I almost completely buy. But I'm not sure I buy the sexism claim. I am going to describe something that I perceive to be real, and that I claim is sexism by Tatum's definition.

Basically, it seems to be acceptable to believe and joke that men are cavemen and dolts, and that women are the more reasonable sex, the torchbearers of good manners and civilization, the ones really running the show. This is ubiquitous throughout pop culture. Look at Homer Simpson, for example. Or "My Big Fat Greek Wedding", when the matriarch claims that "The man of the family may be the head, but the woman is the neck." Basically, it seems acceptable to joke that men are idiots, that women are always right, and that men should always come around and listen to what women tell them. To tell the joke the other way sounds insulting.

Now I don't think this is nearly a big of a deal as the sexism going from men to women (gender bias in hiring... etc... I think most people who have read this far know the evidence better than I do anyway, so I won't go into it). It exists for natural reasons, might be a natural result of men-to-women-sexism, and I'm not even claiming it's wrong. But it is sort of ingrained in our culture, and so is prevalent enough to be institutional. I claim it's sexism. (Any rebuttals?)

How to be good? One natural thing I wonder when I read this book is, how can I be good? How can I contribute in some small part to undermining racism and sexism?

This turns out to be damn hard. I have learned from personal experience that women can get very upset with me, in a big hurry, in circumstances where I bring up issues regarding sexism in what I feel is a respectful manner. And the book provides similar examples. For example, Tatum refers to Black people as "Black" throughout, but she quoted one Black woman as being upset when White people called her "Black", because she felt that it carried with it preconceived notions and prejudice.

If not "Black", what then? "African-American"? "People of Color"? "Negro"? It seems like any of these could cause offense. If I merely try to talk about racial issues, people will get upset.

Now it is not my business to tell people they shouldn't be upset. Whether people "should" be upset is a meaningless question. People simply do get upset. But that said, what should I do?

I find it difficult to identify emotionally with a cause if I cannot talk about it without upsetting its supporters. And I think Tatum's example illustrates that these discussions really can be a minefield. I should simply not expect that I will be able to never upset anybody.

Tatum suggests that White people form groups to talk with other white people about race, that they seek and they read a lot about White contributions to antiracist causes, and that they self-consciously identify as White, that they "own their Whiteness". I'm not quite sure I agree, but much about her suggestions does ring true. That said, is such a severe effort needed in order to be good?

All for now. And I'm not even half done with the book!

Hello from Athens, Georgia!

In Athens today, and will be going to Atlanta tomorrow to talk about cubic fields. A couple random observations:

- Athens seems like a really nice place. Definitely small, but certainly appealing. We walked around downtown a little bit -- it looked pleasantly chaotic, there were other people around, and the beer was good. (And tonight, I have insisted on a trip to the 40 Watt Club.)

- The University of Georgia has a lot of regrettably ugly buildings. I did some work in the science library, and they had all sorts of signs and posters which looked like they would be more at home in a middle school library than in somewhere professionals go to do research.

- I like the mood in the department. For one thing, it has more than the usual share of women -some math departments I have been to have been really, really male. I've gotten into some serious math conversations, but I don't get the insular vibe that I've gotten at some places.

- I've heard echoes of one of my frustrations as a postdoc: You enjoy a wonderful environment, and you're loving life, but you know full well you don't get to stay forever. Goes with the territory I guess.

- I got grilled during my talk. Some people hate that, but I'm always quite pleased when people ask me a ton of questions. Even if one of them is to politely inform me that no, $O_K \otimes Z$ is not an integral domain.

- My host has been extraordinarily polite. I knew him from grad school, but not all that well. He has taken considerable pains to show me around, without being overbearing. I'm moving to South Carolina in the fall, so I will have the opportunity to reciprocate!

- I think every city anywhere in the South has somewhere named Five Points.

Why Chinese mothers are(n't) superior.

I have no opinion on Chinese mothers themselves. But I definitely have an opinion on this essay, "Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior".

Her argument hinges on this point:

"What Chinese parents understand is that nothing is fun until you're good at it."

Is she right? Well, let me think about some things I've enjoyed in my own life:

Math: I enjoy it, and I enjoy it because I'm good at it.

Karate: I took karate lessons for ten years. I've earned a black belt, and I solidly enjoyed it. I seem to be making her point for her.

Improv comedy, cooking, chess, guitar, piano, blues dancing, sea kayaking, mountain climbing, bridge, ...: Here I feel that I can shoot down her point with some conviction.

But even then, I have to notice that she's right about a couple of things. In the first place, I enjoyed these things the most when I succeeded. When my fellow students and I pulled off a five-minute skit in improv lessons, or when I played some little piano piece with actual two-part harmony. So I enjoyed these things because I got a little good at them.

But beyond that, all of these activities are things I could get good at, with a lot more effort along the same lines. I enjoy chess precisely because I'm improving, and because I know it would never stop rewarding my efforts. But I enjoy it now, and that wouldn't change if I played my last game tonight.

Let me go one step further:

Math. I said I'm good at it. But actually, by the standards of the company I keep, I'm only good at analytic number theory. (And, if I compare myself to Sound, ..., but let's not go there.) Ravi Vakil advises graduate students to go to research seminars outside their seminar area. And I'm pretty sure he's right.

Now, I'm never going to get good at, say, algebraic geometry unless I take a serious amount of effort away from my other work. Does that mean I shouldn't go to algebraic geometry seminars? I think it doesn't. Ravi's idea is that, although I might not understand most of what is going on, seeing a different perspective on things helps get my internal wheels churning, improves my sense of creativity, imperceptibly teaches me how to do my own work just a little bit better.

And so it is with school plays, sleepovers, and instruments other than the piano and the violin. These things are of value, and of value that you can't always see.

Less Wrong?

So here is something interesting that has surprised me in San Francisco: It is common for people (i.e., roommates) to give each other rides to and from the airport.

Now why is this surprising? Because we have safe, efficient, clean public transportation (BART) that goes straight to the airport terminal. I know of friends living close to the BART line who've given or received rides.

And my first reaction was: To ask for or accept a ride... isn't this a bit irrational? To impose on others, or to allow others to impose on you, for something that's easily done alone?

So I was reading the interesting blog Less Wrong. The masthead declares that the blog is "devoted to refining the art of human rationality". The following problem ("Newcomb's Problem") appeared in one of their posts:

A superintelligence from another galaxy, whom we shall call Omega, comes to Earth and sets about playing a strange little game. In this game, Omega selects a human being, sets down two boxes in front of them, and flies away.

Box A is transparent and contains a thousand dollars.
Box B is opaque, and contains either a million dollars, or nothing.

You can take both boxes, or take only box B.

And the twist is that Omega has put a million dollars in box B iff Omega has predicted that you will take only box B.

Omega has been correct on each of 100 observed occasions so far - everyone who took both boxes has found box B empty and received only a thousand dollars; everyone who took only box B has found B containing a million dollars. (We assume that box A vanishes in a puff of smoke if you take only box B; no one else can take box A afterward.)

Before you make your choice, Omega has flown off and moved on to its next game. Box B is already empty or already full.

Omega drops two boxes on the ground in front of you and flies off.

Do you take both boxes, or only box B?

"Obviously", you should take both boxes. Omega has already flown off.

The Less Wrong blog post launches into a long discussion of rational behavior, even discussing Bayesian probability and whatnot. The blog seems to take it for granted that better decisions are made by people who understand Bayes' theorem than people who don't. But I think that most mathematicians would take both boxes, and most non-mathematicians would take only Box B. And get the million dollars.

In my opinion, the interesting thing about this example is how contrived it isn't. Suppose that your goal in life is to lead as rewarding of a life as possible, and you approach this rationally. Then you start thinking about how to optimize your time, and how to get the most of every day, and so on. Surely you wouldn't give anyone a ride to the airport.

And yet, I've developed a great admiration for people who give each other rides, whose sense of efficiency is trumped by a sense of companionship and consideration for others, and who don't ever try to optimize anything. These are the people who leave Box A on the ground. After all, as they know from experience, if you do, you get a million dollars.

And indeed you do. I understand Bayes' Theorem, which may put me at a disadvantage. But I've learned that it's often right to be more wrong.

No longer a blog for things to be.

Hello everyone! For the new year I'm rebooting my blog -- taking it totally public (i.e., putting a link on my Facebook page) and rededicating it to my original intention: talking about the interesting and beautiful things I see, hear, and experience every day. I've had this blog for about two years now, but it got a bit repetitive and stale, and I feel like starting over.

Don't have too much to say now... was up late last night at a fabulous blues dancing party! And so I'm too tired now to put a coherent sentence together. But watch this space.